


Sitting Butterfly, Autumn Road

by BlackMajjicDuchess



Series: Namesake [14]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Autumn, Butterflies, Friendship, Gen, Gentleness, Heroism, Migration, Minor Injuries, Morality, Nature, Philosophy, Protection, Tourism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-10
Updated: 2014-04-10
Packaged: 2018-01-18 21:31:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,318
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1443625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackMajjicDuchess/pseuds/BlackMajjicDuchess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I got the idea in my head one day to bring some of the Naruto characters face-to-face with the thing they were named after for the first time. I thought it might be fun. Also accepting challenges!</p><p>Stories will be posted separately but as part of the Namesake series.</p><p>Part 14: Sitting Butterfly, Autumn Road</p><p>Chouza finds an injured butterfly, and reflects on what it means to be a Shinobi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sitting Butterfly, Autumn Road

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ishimaru_Asuka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishimaru_Asuka/gifts).



> To issue a challenge, just comment on one of the stories in the series with the name you'd like to see done. The only stipulation is that it HAS to be a name that has a meaning, and it has to be a meaning that is something one can encounter. Example: Madara means "spots." What the heck am I supposed to do with that? On the other hand, Naruto's name refers to some kind of fish cake, which is something he could confront somehow.
> 
> Chouza Akimichi challenge from Ishimaru_Asuka
> 
> Chouza = Sitting Butterfly  
> Akimichi = Autumn Road

He almost didn’t see it, thinking it was a leaf. It trembled, flickering, tumbling across his path, lost in a sea of shivering trefoils. Half a hundred leaves of all different colors rolled in an undulating wave across the road, caught up in a breeze that was just powerful enough to control their direction. They shushed and crackled, as if complaining… but not loudly enough, for their flight was predetermined and undeniable. The wind would put them over there, and that was all there was to it.

Chouza stopped to watch the spectacle, allowing the breezes to ripple across his face and dive into his hair. Autumn was his favorite season. It was just warm enough, just cold enough. Something about carrying around extra weight made extreme seasons unbearable. He was blisteringly overheated in the summer time, but his toes and his nose and his poor ears froze from bad circulation in the winter. And spring was too muddy and ugly. Everything was dead and slowly being reborn in the spring. To be honest, he didn’t truly mind any of the seasons; seasons were a part of life, after all, and the cyclical nature of the earth was comforting. It was like a reminder that, no matter how bad things got, there would always be a better time to come in the future.

But autumn… Autumn was lovely. The world exploded into colors in the autumn, and the air slowly cooled. There was the general sense that nature was going to sleep, and it made him want to kick his feet up on the porch with a snack and just _watch_. The birds and the butterflies were going on vacation, the toads and the turtles were tucking in to hibernate, preparing to sleep through the long winter. And some Shinobi, like himself, were more than happy to accept a mission to enjoy the weather and the general lethargy that came with the cooler clime.

It was the most relaxing season of them all, for it came right after the bustling chaos of summertime, when people the world over were so filled with restlessness that it made them do crazy things. Summer was the highest time for crimes and for business. Not only was Konoha full to bursting with tourists bearing visitors’ passes—tourists that needed to be escorted, protected, or watched constantly—but the rest of the nations suddenly suffered an influx of violent crimes, and the requests for Shinobi missions nearly tripled. Autumn hadn’t gotten here fast enough.

Chouza inhaled the fresh fall scent as he watched the leaves roil and dance in tune with nature. And that was when he saw it: the barest flash of blue. He blinked, thinking he had imagined it. The autumn leaves came in a variety of colors, but blue was exceedingly rare. He thought it might be a symbol of good luck on their mission, so he bent to dig it out of the crowd and carry it with him. He brushed aside the various kinds of leaves in colors from red and yellow to purple and brown and everything between, and he found the blue leaf.

Except that it wasn’t a blue leaf. It wasn’t a leaf at all. As he swept aside the dead leaves, he revealed a flickering set of wings and frantically scrambling appendages. It was a Chestnut Tiger, one of the migratory butterflies that, by all accounts of the insect, should have been long gone by now. “Why aren’t you in the tropics already?” he cooed at it. Before it could consider answering him, though, the wind picked up again, and the leaves threatened to overwhelm the fragile creature once again to drag it from his careful hands and into the brutal beyond.

He wouldn’t have that. He used his clan’s trademark technique, an ability more often than not used to cause widespread damage, to engorge his hands and shelter the brittle wings from the wind and the rough and raspy leaves. When the breeze had passed, taking all the other leaves with it, he cupped his hands around the Tiger and brought it into the shelter of his armor. Its wings flared, opening, closing, testing the air. It attempted to fly away then, and Chouza would not impede its natural instinct to fly south. Instead of careening through the atmosphere, however, it merely flopped over his hands and tumbled to the ground, where it once again resumed its desperate plight against the leaves and the wind. Chouza felt his heart constrict to see it struggle. He had heard once that moths and butterflies were coated in scales, and that somehow the scales aided them in flight. If you grasped one of them by the wings, the scales rubbed off, hindering its ability to fly. Perhaps the little thing had lost some of its scales to the leaves? They did eventually grow back, though…

“I think you’d better stick with me,” he told it in a tone that brooked no nonsense. It was a tone that always worked on his son, anyway. He scooped it up again as gently as possible, careful not to disturb its wings, and this time, it made no move to leave him. It was a lovely creature; its color spots were a light and cheery blue webbed over with black designs. Its lower set of wings was a dusky rust color. It looked like a summer butterfly dipped in autumn. Perhaps it was his good luck charm after all.

For the next several days, he kept the butterfly protected in a makeshift cavern in his weapons pouch. He handed over his weapons to his best friend, Shikaku, who cautioned him against setting aside his defenses in favor of a good luck charm… what if they got into a battle, after all? But Chouza had the infallible sense that this was just something that he _had to do_. The creature that now inhabited his weapons pouch was defenseless and weak, and he was the only one who could help. That kind of responsibility was not to be abandoned lightly. Inoichi, the other in their inseparable trio, raised an eyebrow and asked if his life was so meaningless that he’d endanger it for the sake of a butterfly.

Their words brought a frown to his face. The most fragile creatures of the world were its most magnificent. It was as if they were created just to add the flair of art to their otherwise boring, caustic world. What was darkness without its light? What was autumn without the colorful leaves? What was a nightmare without the promise of a dream? Did he want to live in a world without butterflies? Would he risk the life of anything just because its worth was deemed to be less than his own?

No, he decided, as he shoved his weapons into his friend’s shrug. He checked on the butterfly a moment later, to ensure it hadn’t been jarred. It was working its wings, trying to strengthen them, perhaps. Its legs carried it in a small circle, as if looking around and noticing that it had new accommodations for the first time. Almost like a weary tourist in a first class hotel room, he mused, remembering previous missions. And when it had rested and was ready to travel to another far off locale, the butterfly would check out, politely thank him, and be on its way. Their moment together would be gone, and they’d never see each other again. But its life had touched him, for he now remembered why he was a Shinobi in the first place. And surely, he had saved the creature’s life… that was the kind of deed that earned one a place in another’s fond memories. He and the butterfly were surely connected, then, in some way.

With a smile and a long-suffering stare from his friends, they were off again.

**Author's Note:**

> GAWD, hardest one yet. That's why I've been stuck for literally DAYS. 
> 
> Here goes my thought process: Does a butterfly sit? Butterflies don't exist in the autumn, it's too cold. *frown* Maybe a chair made out of butterflies? A butterfly shaped chair? but my readers will feel cheated. There has to be an actual butterfly. But do butterflies sit? And in the fall? Would it be just chilling there in the fall? On a road? Really? WTF do I do? WAIT! Butterflies migrate... but would there still be any there in the fall, or would they be gone already? *types into google: "migratory butterflies of Japan."* AHA!
> 
> So there you have it. Bow down to my awesome, because that shit was HARD. :P


End file.
